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AES Section Meeting Reports

Toronto - January 31, 2017

Meeting Topic:Eddie Kramer

Moderator Name:Ross Whitney

Speaker Name:Eddie Kramer — Producer, Engineer

Other business or activities at the meeting:Executive Chairman Frank Lockwood welcomed everyone to the meeting. He thanked the evening's sponsors as well as the annual sponsors and continuing supporters.

He also thanked Norm Verail from HHB for the Adam monitors for this meeting and ExCom member Rob DiVito for setting up the Livestream feed.

He announced currently planned meetings for the coming months and thanked Executive Committee member Ross Whitney for setting this meeting up.

Summary

Ross Whitney introduced Eddie Kramer to the audience.

Mr. Kramer's presentation was a series of slides and video footage of various sessions including his first session as a tea-boy. He noted the extraordinary range of different genres of music he was involved in the early 60's from session to session. The evening was a chronological retrospective of studios, music, the artists and the equipment.

At the start, a large part of the presentation included stories of Jimi Hendrix.

One story told of Jimi Hendrix learning Sgt. Pepper from a pre-release copy and performing the title track where the Beatles were in the audience. When George heard it he told Paul they had to re-do the guitars!

He also talked about the two sessions he was involved in with the Beatles "All You Need Is Love" and "Baby You're A Rich Man". In other anecdotes, John Lennon and Paul McCartney would hang out in the control room during the Rolling Stones' sessions, and they both also sang back up on some the Stones' tracks.

Other stories involved Kiss and Led Zeppelin. The famous 'print through' section in "Whole Lotta Love" was not print through but a leaky pot on the board.

Near the close of his presentation, he talked about restoring the El Macambo (a notable club in Toronto) and putting a recording studio into it. The inside of the club has been totally stripped and is being rebuilt from the ground up. The two live spaces will remain.

Mr. Kramer said "the studio will be phenomenal".

Frank Lockwood and Ross Whitney presented Eddie with some certificates and gifts.

A question and answer period followed. Topics included recording the Stones at the El Macambo in the 70's; and the stereo phasing effect on Jimi Hendrix' album; preserving hearing (mixing at moderate volumes and always wearing ear plugs at concerts); not playing vibraphone on Baby You're A Rich Man(!); Brian Jones stumbling into Jimi's session for All Along The Watchtower; Eddie's present recording chain/workflow; and the resurgence of vinyl; recording Band of Gypsies; and the Frampton Comes Alive album (no overdubs just a few punch-ins).